practicing the art of gratitude

I saw this idea on Pinterest a while back and decided it was a must for November.

I wanted a calendar small enough to fit on the back of a door, so I used two pieces of scrapbook paper instead of a poster board. 

The instructions called for coin envelopes, which I wasn't familiar with.  After searching all of the craft stores, I finally found these at a shop called PixiePaper on etsy. 

Because 30 full sized coin envelopes would have made my calendar too big, I sealed them up and cut them in half, creating smaller calendar pockets. 

Then, I glued thirty pockets on to my paper, added numbers, and a glued a banner at the top. 

To make it exciting for the kids, I set out a bowl of paper tags, also from PixiePaper, and a cup of permanent markers.  Permanent markers are a big deal at our house.  I love them and have them in every color, but they are almost always off limits for the kids. 

While we ate supper, we talked about being thankful, and how important it is to express gratitude for the things in our lives we appreciate, big and small.  Then, we each chose a paper tag, wrote down one thing we were especially thankful for, talked about what we had written down, and finally placed our tags in the first envelope. 

Everyone loved the calendar.  I'm looking forward to this month long exercise in gratitude.